The Glenfiddich distillery in Dufftown (in the Speyside region) is the core business of William Grant & Sons, Scotland’s largest independent, family-owned whisky distiller. The original distillery was built by William Grant (1839–1923) and his family in 1887, and the first whisky was distilled on Christmas Day of that year. Descendants of the family still own the company. See Scotland and Ireland.
This is a huge facility, with a capacity of 14 million liters a year, making it the second-largest malt distillery in Scotland, eclipsed only by the Macallan, which after its recent expansion makes 15 million liters a year. See Macallan. The twenty-eight pot stills are maintained by in-house coppersmiths, and a staff of coopers build and repair casks, work that has largely been outsourced at other distilleries.
Glenfiddich was a pioneer in marketing and exporting single malt whisky, beginning in the early 1960s, using their signature triangular bottle, introduced in 1956. They were also the first to open their doors to tourists, in 1969.
The flagship expression is twelve years old. The Glenfiddich brand was the world’s best-selling single malt until 2015, when rival Glenlivet inched ahead.
Though large, the distillery continues to experiment with wood finishes and special bottlings. The standard fifteen-year-old expression is a product of the distillery’s “solera vat,” a unique system where mature whiskies from different types of casks are mingled in a large wooden vat. Half of the vat is drawn off and bottled, then it is filled again; it never fully empties, so the whisky is a mingling of all the casks ever poured into it.
whisky, single-malt, global.Broom, Dave. The World Atlas of Whisky, rev. ed. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2014.
Glenfiddich website. http://www.glenfiddich.com/ (accessed February 11, 2021).
By: Lew Bryson